the aftermath

 After that incredible week of snow, very cold temperatures moved in, preserving all that snow but also making me very reluctant to strap my skis on.  I only got a ten-pack of tickets this year and I don't want to use them on days where I'm in the lodge every two runs, trying to thaw my toes.  This strategy worked for sure on Saturday where it was 10 F at our house at 8:30 a.m. and 2 F up at Alta.

Here comes the sun (Albion chair)

The ski bus is running again, albeit in a reduced capacity: every half an hour instead of every fifteen minutes and the Alta drop-off is at Wildcat Base only, not Albion Lodge.  On the face of it, this presents a problem since the "lodge" at Wildcat Base is Goldminer's Daughter, which is a hotel and which last year decided they really preferred to have their paying guests cluttering up the lodge area and jacked the day locker rentals to $15/day.  Albion Lodge is a day lodge for everyone but if you get dropped off at Wildcat Base, you can't get up there unless you put on your boots and skis and ride the tow rope.  EXCEPT that H learned - after a standing-room-only 7:15 a.m. bus - that there's an Alta shuttle that goes between Wildcat Base and Albion Lodge, dropping employees (and the hoi polloi) off as they go.  That's fantastic and H got up to Albion Lodge by 7:55.

Cold in the shade tho'

Because the new Sunnyside lift is not yet put together, Alta opened the quaint and very slow Albion two-seater chairlift to help get people out of the base area.  This is the first time either of us had ridden that chair and yes, it is excruciatingly slow, but it's very pretty AND gets you up to where you can easily access the Supreme and Sugarloaf chairs.  From there, the resort was pretty much wide open - Alta ski patrol had managed the 71" of fresh well, with only Devil's Castle, East Castle and Mt. Baldy still roped off.  It was cold, for sure, but it wasn't quite as crowded as H expected (see above re: 2 F) and the snow was magnificent, so deep and so soft.  Rocks? What rocks?  

Coming out of Catherine's Area

H skied all over - Backside, Ballroom, Catherine's Area, Fred's Trees - and worked himself hard: at one point he was in mid-thigh deep snow, which was fantastic ... until it flattened out at the bottom and left him flailing to get back onto a groomer.  He caught the 1:09 bus down (and since the reduced bus routes don't go on the bypass road between Snowbird and Alta anymore, staying on the main road instead, the trip time is a bit shorter) and it's quite possible that there was an afternoon nap when he got home.